Hi Donutz,
Yep, I have that too. The latest being this morning. I was in excellent condition before the surgery (temp ileo) 3 months ago, but since I lost 15 lbs. after surgery I'm sure I lost muscle including however muscular my abs were. Meaning, after losing muscle there's probably not as much structure to hold things in as there was. Of course after surgery they wanted me to regain weight. I've put back on most of it but I'm sure it's all fat and mostly around my midsection and hips. So part of that bulge is now probably subcutaneous fat which is emphasized by stuff coming through the stoma which makes everything look bulgier than it would have before I'd regained the weight. Does that make sense? But I do notice that it goes down too. I've talked to the doc about it, asking, "how come I've got this bulge now?" and he sort of laughed and said, "oh, you have a pooch!" which I guess was his way of saying it's not serious; but he did say that it wasn't a hernia. Also, I asked my other doctor about it, and I told him I pictured it like my small intestine pulled up and over where it doesn't want to be, to drag it over to where the stoma site is, to make the opening. And he said, yeah, that's about right! So I guess I'm not surprised I have weird bulges/pain/discomfort in the whole area. The pain is around/behind the stoma (not bad enough to take painkillers or whatever) but it's also in different spots around my abdomen and it seems to get worse when I've been wearing one of those belts that clip to the sides of the bag. Like the belt is forcing everything to be "held in place" when it doesn't really want to be. So.... hopefully someone who knows more about it than I do will let us know!